Friday, December 20, 2013

"The Blooding of Jack Absolute"

C.C. Humphreys is a novelist, fight choreographer, and actor who played Jack Absolute in The Rivals for a six-month run in London in the mid-1980s. When he became a full-time writer a decade ago, he decided to transform his leading man into a title character. Humphreys has written seven historical fiction novels including The French Executioner, which was runner-up for the CWA Steel Dagger for Thrillers 2002. The Jack Absolute series features three books: Jack Absolute, The Blooding of Jack Absolute, and Absolute Honour.

Humphreys applied the Page 69 Test to The Blooding of Jack Absolute and reported the following:

From page 69:

“Sweet boy,” she said, turning her wrist so that he could kiss her palm. He was only too happy to oblige.

Three months before he would undoubtedly have galloped on apace, sought lips, tongue, breast, and all in rapid succession. But he had been a good student. So he led her around to the table, poured them both a glass of the port, clinked glasses before draining his, then whispered, “Stand here, I have something for you.”

Actually, its quite a good page for the early Jack. He’s sixteen, think himself a dashing fellow about London Town and right here he is with the woman who is teaching him the practicalities of love making. Fanny Harper is a courtesan, and the mistress of Lord Melbury, one of the most powerful politicians in England. But since he rarely visits, she is quite happy to ‘educate’ Young Jack.

I hope I am not reading too much into the number ‘69’ but… On it, Jack is demonstrating his new skills as a conversationalist. But he is building up to practising something else he’s learned from Fanny and does so on the next page. He recites a sonnet he’s written which is – I will try to put this delicately – about the joys of pleasuring a woman, eh hem, orally. It is quite a sexy scene, foreplay to what follows but which does not go according to plan. For Lord Melbury turns up and catches the young rogue in flagrante. This leads to all sorts of complications and, eventually, means that Jack has to flee England and arrives in North America two days before the battle for Quebec.